


we're all the better for it

by carloabay



Series: you’re no better [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, SHIELD, no beta we die like natasha, not explicit, relationship built on bickering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay
Summary: "You need to talk about your problems, Hill," Natasha says."You are my problems."Or, that fic where they pin each other down and therapise each other.
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Series: you’re no better [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194239
Comments: 17
Kudos: 124





	we're all the better for it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avalance_blackhill_shipper_1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalance_blackhill_shipper_1/gifts).



> Would recommend reading _something solid to last the night_ first, but it's not required: it's only referenced once.
> 
> avalance_blackhill_shipper_1 you requested this in the comments ages ago and I've only just had inspo, sorry for the delay lmao

Romanoff and Barton tango on the mats. It's back and forth, a flow like a brutal dance, at one point it turns into a wrestle, a boxing match, a tally for the most roundhouse kicks. They match each other hit for hit, smoothly switching between tactics and styles.

Then inevitably, Romanoff gets the upper hand. Barton slams hip-first into the mat, and he goes down struggling, a knee in his solar plexus, his knuckles jammed beneath Romanoff's chin.

He goes slack, and taps out. Romanoff stands, stretching out her spine, hands linked over her head, and then she offers Barton a hand; she pulls him up, the wire of her bicep tensing through her sleeve.

Maria's water bottle erupts over her hand, the tap spilling, droplets splashing onto her leggings. She scrabbles for the tap and yanks it closed, cursing herself out in her head.

"Excuse me," someone says from behind her, and Maria moves out of the way, struggling to wind the cap back on to her bottle. 

She leaves, and once she's out in the grey corridor, in the midst of stiffly ironed uniforms and heavy boots, she can breathe better. Maria can imagine that Romanoff was watching her leave, but that's all it will ever amount to.

It's been a while. Three weeks since a kiss in the lightning-bright gym at the godforsaken hours of the morning.

She hasn't been counting the days. She hasn't.

Maria stretches out in her cabin, heels, calves, thighs, all the way up to her neck.

In two days, she has a mission in Morocco, on comms with Strike Team Delta. Right now, she would rather rip her own eyeballs out than look Natasha Romanoff in the face.

It wasn't like the kiss was _bad_. It was practically golden, discounting the awkward angle of Maria's elbows and the way Natasha just _stood_ there, not pulling back, not pushing in.

It was what happened after. It was the red-faced, tongue-tied, tripping angrily over her own shins. It was the frustration at herself for letting it get to that point, for acting on her feelings. 

It was the look in Romanoff's eyes, something like triumph, that made Maria turn tail and run.

Maria cracks her neck. She needs a different train of thought, and quick.

∆

They're only an hour in when everything goes to shit.

" _She's made us_ ," Natasha mutters over the line, and Maria snatches her radio up.

"Get out. Evacuate from the roof, there'll be an airlift there in ten minutes." She whirls a finger at the messenger, and he darts away. "Romanoff?"

" _Ten minutes isn't enough_ ," Barton hisses, and it's clear they've been arguing quickly in the time that she's been away from the radio.

"That's an order, Agent Barton," Maria growls.

" _Remind me of your clearance level again, Hill_?" Natasha says smoothly, sounding perfectly unrattled. Barton groans quietly.

"I'm running the op," Maria snaps back, spitting the words out through closed teeth. "That means you take orders from me."

" _Mhm._ " There's a rattling that sounds suspiciously like bullets being loaded.

"To the airlift, Romanoff, because if I have to haul ass in there to save your sorry skins, rest assured you will _never_ hear the end of it," Maria warns, gripping the radio so tight that the plastic starts to crackle.

" _Sir, yessir_ ," Romanoff drawls. Clint makes a regretful sound, and then his comm line cuts off.

"I'd better see you at the evac point," Maria says, and she hangs the radio up.

"Agent Hill, the tac team's seated," someone says from behind her, Agent Karlsson, hanging around the edge of the doorframe. "Lift-off in one minute."

"Copy that," she says, and they leave the control room. 

Maria snags her water bottle on the way out.

∆

Every beat of the helicopter blades through the roof is a tightened string around Maria's ribs.

"The second we get there, I want you all out on the roof of the hotel!" she roars, through the heavy noise above them. The helicopter rocks back and forth. The team nod back quickly. "We don't go in unless there's a distress call! In the event of this happening, we split to Alpha and Beta!"

The comms line whirs in her ear as a field technician fiddles with the transmitter. She finds herself desperately hoping that they find a mess, a disaster that she can clean up herself, maybe to prove to Romanoff that she's more than whatever anger, frustration, lust that Romanoff has tried to draw out of her.

"Agent May, Agent Karlsson, Agent Field and myself will be Alpha team! There's a door to the roof on the east side! We'll standby there, wait for either the call to go in, or to welcome Agents Barton and Romanoff onto their ride home! Clear?" Her newly formed Alpha team nods wordlessly. 

Maria grips her rifle a little tighter. 

"Good. Beta, stake a perimeter, relay information through the line! Keep ground on the roof until we're all up in the air! Clear?" The Beta team make affirmative gestures. Maria takes a swig of water, her throat hardening already.

∆

"Hill's gonna be mad," Barton says carefully, as they creep around a corner. Natasha makes a rude sound.

"You're no fun."

"I'd like to keep my skin on my body if that's alright with you," he replies.

"Your pants are falling down."

"Shit." He hoists them up with one hand and they keep going. "What's the objective here, anyway?"

"To get what we came for," Natasha growls. "You can be really dense, Barton."

"It would've been easier if you hadn't-"

"I did not blow our cover," Natasha snaps, and Barton makes a disagreeing face. "Shut up."

He's silent for a couple more corridors. Their objective is Neil Wain, and it's a rescue mission, of sorts; they're rescuing his apocalyptic invention. It's not really a rescue mission.

"That's his suite," Natasha says, checking the door numbers. "Right, let's be smart about this-"

"It's not a rescue mission," Barton snorts, and he ducks under her arm and kicks the door down with a crash.

Natasha hisses a tirade of curses and Barton rolls his eyes and slips into the room. "Keep watch," he calls over his shoulder. Natasha gives his retreating back the middle finger.

∆

They touch down and the team pours out, boots thick on the ground, the comms line clear now. Maria jogs to the roof exit, and Alpha line up behind her, hands on shoulders, tense and ready to run.

"Romanoff, call in," Maria says. 

" _Hill_?"

"That's Agent Hill to you."

" _We're in Wain's suite_."

"What?" Maria hisses. "I told you to get to the roof!"

" _Don't get your panties in a twist_ ," Romanoff replies, the epitome of cool. Maria's fingers itch on her rifle.

"Romanoff," she says, dangerously low, "get out, now, or we're coming in to get you." She knows the rest of the team is listening in. She doesn't care.

" _Come and get me, then_ ," Romanoff says, playfully. " _What are you waiting for_?"

"When I find you," Maria growls back, "if they haven't shot you yet, I'll kill you myself." There's a muffled protest that Maria can assume is Barton, and Romanoff snorts derisively.

" _I look forward to_ -" the line goes dead.

"Romanoff?" Maria barks. Nothing. The line blurs into white noise. And panic starts to seep in. 

"Are we going in, Agent Hill?" May mutters, from behind her. Maria beckons to Alpha and makes two quick motions forward, fingers doubled, towards the door. She waits for May's confirming tap on the shoulder, and then she grinds her bootheel into the hot roof, and slams her other foot into the lock.

The door flies inward and they swarm the thin stairwell, single file, quick boots on the metal stairs. Over the cacophony, it takes a second for Maria to realise that alarms are going off, lights flashing red. The muzzle of her gun stays securely fixed downwards, trigger finger itching for anyone coming up.

They reach the bottom of the stairs, and it's all been too slow. Wain's suite is on the fifth floor. They've got two more flights to go, and they might not make it in time. Maria piles on the speed.

They meet resistance the next floor down. Mercenaries, most likely, thick tac suits, greased hair. 

Maria doesn't have time to take notes. The teams rush each other, and soon the air is streaming with bullets. Maria crouches against the wall, making herself as small as possible, ducking and weaving, rattling off shots, and the mercenaries go down, one by one. They step over bodies on their way to the stairs.

"Romanoff?" Maria tries again as they take the stairwell, boots sinking into plush carpet. "Barton?" May rattles out three shots, and two bodies tip over the banister above. Maria acknowledges her with a nod, and they move on.

The comms buzz, higher for a second, and then the white noise subsides and they fall silent. Maria almost falters.

The doors to the fifth floor are open, and there's one long corridor, leading into a T-intersection at the end. Maria can see the open door to Wain's suite halfway down, the carpet littered with prostrate bodies, stained dark. Maria waves Alpha down the corridor, checks the stairwell one last time, and pulls the doors to the floor closed. 

It's taking all the will in the world not to sprint down the corridor, and she doesn't even know why.

The floor is utterly, creepily silent.

"Barton?" Maria calls, the butt of the gun nestled securely into her shoulder. "Romanoff?" Someone pokes their head out of the door to Wain's suite, and relief crashes over Maria in waves. 

Barton, pale and bloodstained, and he beckons them forward sharply.

"Nat's been shot," he says, as Maria reaches the door, and the relief fizzles out, quick. She drops to one knee, and Natasha's slumped against the wall, just inside the doorway, glaring at them both.

"May, take the left, Karlsson, on right. Field, get in here." Field obeys, stepping over Barton, who's cross-legged on the floor like a child, bow and arrows discarded. "Can you stand, Romanoff?"

"Do I have to?" Natasha replies, petulantly. 

"Assess her situation," Maria orders, and Field nods and gets to work. Natasha looks like she's drifting off. "Hey!" Maria snaps, and she jerks awake with a scowl. "Stay conscious."

"So you can chew me out?" Natasha mumbles.

"Exactly," growls Maria. "You disobeyed a direct order _and_ a superior officer. You blew your cover, ignored the change in mission objective, and got yourself shot!" She's yelling now, and it feels good, even though Natasha's eyelids are slurring closed again. "You can bet your ass, the second we're back at the Helicarrier, you're taking a week's worth of paperwork back with you on shore leave."

"Fuck you," Natasha mumbles. "And you wonder why no one likes working with you." Barton groans again.

"Stop talking, Nat," he says.

"No, no, keep talking," Maria says, frustration coming to a heat in her throat. "Go on, Romanoff. Carry on telling me _exactly_ what you think of me."

"I can stop the bleeding for now," Field interrupts. "But I'm not promising anything. We need to get her back to base at least, maybe even the Hub hospital."

"Through and through?" Natasha asks, jumbling her words. Field shakes his head. 

"Internal bleeding, though. Might've hit your liver, can't be sure."

"Shit," Barton says softly.

"She won't make it up all those stairs."

"Yes, I will," Natasha snaps, and she struggles to sit upright. "One of you stop twittering and give me a goddamn hand, here. Hill-"

"If you start giving me orders, so help me God, I will throw you through that window," Maria snaps back. "Barton, get out into the corridor. Field, give me a hand with this idiot." The two of them heave Natasha to her feet, slinging her arms around their shoulders. "May, move out. Barton, take point, Karlsson at the back, May on the right side. We're taking the main stairs."

But they're barely out the door of the suite when everything gets a whole lot worse.

"Company!" Karlsson snaps, as the double doors at the end of the corridor swing open again, and armoured attacker's swarm in. 

"Jesus," Barton breathes, reaching for an arrow with a crack and a wince. "Split?"

"Split," Maria agrees, and they run for the intersection. "You three, take the left," Maria gasps, heaving Natasha further over her shoulder. 

"Hill-" Barton starts.

"Do it!" Maria dives around the corner with Field half a step behind her, Natasha swinging drunkenly between them like a misshapen bell. Bullets bite the wall opposite the corner and they keep going. 

Natasha is getting heavy, Field is slowing. Maria goes foot after foot after foot, doors flashing past them on both sides. The alarm is still going, a high, terrified whine that builds and drops.

She barely registers the gunshot. Field falls, taking both Natasha and Maria with him, and Maria has to roll to avoid her shoulder getting dislocated.

Maria hits the ground, losing Natasha, and slams into the wall ass-first. 

She untangles herself and scrambles dizzily to her feet; Field is stirring feebly on the floor, Natasha pushing herself to her forearms, and more gunshots.

Maria swings her rifle up and fires off two shots, the barrel kicks against her shoulder, moving with her like it's one of her own bones.

Two attackers go down. Maria grabs Natasha's arm and loops it around her shoulder. 

Field gets up, dizzily. Maria can hear shouting from the corner. She grabs Field's shoulder to pull him to his feet, and her hand comes away sticky. A gunshot wound, right through his arm, spilling all over his uniform.

"Come on," he hisses, ducking under Natasha's arm, and they start to run again.

They stagger into the thin backway stairwell with a grunt, and Maria slams the door behind them and yanks on the handle until it breaks off.

Natasha's head is rolling side to side, pale cheeks, drooping eyelids. Maria jogs her.

"Wake up," she snaps.

"I am awake," Natasha slurs. Then, "Are you mad?"

"You know I am," Maria snarls back. "And I'm going to be even more mad if I have to die in a stairwell because you don't get your ass up these stairs. Come on!" She heaves Natasha more securely onto her feet and they start up the stairs.

Maria doesn't miss the drunken smile on Natasha's face. It's pissing her off.

"We're losing her, Agent Hill," Field warns. They can't lose her. Natasha is ice-pale now, loose like a rag doll. Maria's lungs are burning, hot like she can run forever.

They've almost made it. They're two floors up, two to go, and then Maria hears the door burst inwards below them, and boots streaming in, echoing against metal and off the thin walls.

They freeze.

Natasha's eyes flicker to Maria. Maria raises a finger to her lips.

"Fawq, fawq!" someone growls, Arabic, and two pairs of boots scramble back into action: up the stairs. Maria's heart slams against her chest, and she leans slowly over the banister.

Two heads, bobbing up the steps towards them. Three more are taking the stairs down.

She can take two mercenaries. Right?

Maria leans Natasha back against Field, and Natasha slumps carefully, eyes sliding in and out of focus.

The boots get louder and louder. Maria cracks her knuckles, and grips the banister with one hand. They're one level down, around the corner.

They start up the next level. Maria gathers her courage and jumps, leaping over the banister, and her feet slam into a face. He crumples, and Maria lands on top of him, something crunching in his neck, and he screams.

She stumbles, foot catching under his shoulder, and falls, pawing at the wall to save herself. The other mercenary raises his gun and the butt comes soaring into her face. Maria rolls and the gun clangs off the metal landing, singing in her ear. 

He swings down with a heavy fist, and Maria catches it, wraps her arm around his elbow, swings her leg up to hook backwards around his neck, and rolls, bringing him to the floor with a shuddering crash.

On top, she digs her knee into his solar plexus and punches, right in the face, left, right, left.

He goes limp after the third punch. Maria's knuckles ache, but she scrambles to her feet and dashes back up the stairs.

She scoops Natasha up unceremoniously, and storms up the stairs to the roof.

"I'm sorry, Hill," Natasha mumbles, a blurred movement of lips, bloodstained tongue. Maria's boots pound faster against the stairs, in perfect rhythm with Field. Field pretends not to notice Natasha talking.

Barton meets them at the door. He notes Field's wound and Natasha's condition with his mouth set in a grim line, and everything inside Maria seems to light on fire at once.

She wants to chuck Natasha fucking Romanoff off the edge of the building. How dare she?

They struggle through the afternoon heat together, and the helicopter is already running, blades in lazy circles. May grips Natasha's collar and heaves her in when Maria offers her up, and Karlsson helps Barton in.

Maria climbs on, the helicopter tips and shakes, and then it bounces on nothing and takes off into the sky.

∆

They wheel Natasha into the Hub hospital on a stretcher. 

They have to wrangle Maria from her seat on the helicopter. She's staring emptily at the opposite wall, Natasha's bloodied lips playing out in her mind, over and over again like a reel.

Eventually, Barton joins in, heaves her from the helicopter and frog-marches her across the landing pad and into the Hub.

Staring eyes from behind high collars and thick files. Maria lets herself be led along, and all the sound blurs into something like white noise.

She's lost agents and soldiers before. She knows she'll lose them again.

But could have been all of them, all over again, the Arctic, Indonesia, Ukraine and that _goddamm_ sniper that she spotted too late. It's fellow agents choking on their own blood, faces blurring into one another, it's waist deep water and a dark stain of oil on the surface, scorching flames eating up an infantry Marines beret.

She regrets them all. She regrets Natasha, that dark spread of blood that brought everything to the surface.

∆

Agent Romanoff survives, because of course she does.

Maria tries to swallow all the horrors. She tries to pretend that no one's ever seen her like that.

∆

Someone blocks Maria's punch to the bag and ducks under her arm, two fingers to her breastbone, sending her stumbling back. She tries to catch her breath and her wits, and Natasha, _Natasha_ steps forward again.

"You wouldn't have blamed me, would you?"

"What?" Maria blinks back an urge to headbutt Natasha, right on her pretty little nose. She'd lose, if it came to it. She always does.

"If I'd died." Natasha's in her face, blocking out the punching bag. It's like some kind of sick circle.

"Leave me alone," Maria manages, through clenched teeth.

"You have to talk about your problems, Hill," Natasha says, but she moves out of the way anyway. She drops to the floor, tucking her legs underneath her, elbows on her knees, fingers linked under her chin. Maria rearranges her stance and right hooks the bag. It trembles on its hook.

"You are my problems," she growls, letting loose a flurry of left-and-rights.

"So talk to me."

"You don't want to piss me off more than you already have," Maria says, and she revels in the way her voice is blank and cool.

Natasha falls silent for a second, and the only sound is the echo of the punches Maria drives into the bag, over and over, until her muscles are burning and sweat is dripping into her eyes, down her neck.

"What is it about me," Natasha says, springing to her feet like she's enjoying this, "that pisses you off? Hill."

"You're trying to get a rise out of me," Maria gasps, left, right, left, right. The bag groans.

"I'm trying to get you to face yourself, like you're too cowardly to do," Natasha snaps back. Maria fumbles a punch and hits the bag with a bent wrist. Pain shoots up her arm and she grunts and stumbles back, instinctively hugging her arm to her chest. 

_Cowardly_. 

"You wouldn't have blamed me," Natasha carries on, and when Maria turns to look, panting heavily through her nose like a bull, Natasha is staring her down, like daggers of rock through heavy nightclub air. "You wouldn't, because you think the whole world revolves around you. That you have to take everyone else's problems on the chin." She tips her head up.

"Romanoff," Maria starts, warningly, a rumble of anger rolling in her chest. "You are dangerously close-"

"You can admit it," Natasha replies. "It's messing you up, Hill." She needs to leave, before this turns into a fight that she won't win.

"You don't know me," Maria replies, and it comes out as a weary snap, not as cutting as she'd tried. She turns away, towards the door, and then Natasha grabs her wrist, iron grip, and Maria snaps.

She turns back, strikes with two knuckles right into Natasha's bicep, and Natasha's fingers spring open. Maria brings a knee up, into Natasha's stomach, Natasha folds, and Maria slams her forehead into Natasha's nose.

Natasha drops, and as she does, she hooks her ankle around Maria's knee. They both crash to the ground and Natasha reaches up, locks her arm around Maria's head, and the fight stills.

She's hovering above Natasha, weight on one knee, and Natasha has her trapped, her leg wrapped around Maria's thigh, her arm holding Maria's head in one place. The world shrinks, to this one small space, Maria panting onto Natasha's cheek, straining to stay up.

Natasha's nose is running with blood, smeared across her mouth and under her eye. Maria's head is aching.

"Why didn't you kill me?" she asks. It's been a long time coming. Natasha doesn't loosen her grip.

"Why did you kiss me?" Natasha counters.

"I don't know." It's hurting her to admit it, but her pride is long since shattered. 

It's easier to hold her head up and pretend, though.

Natasha sighs, and a fleck of blood lands on Maria's jaw.

"Yes, you do." Maria strains uselessly, and then gives up.

"You first," she replies, voice rasping. "Why didn't you kill me?" Half an expression flits across Natasha's face, uncertainty, for the first time.

"I didn't need to. You weren't my...mission."

"You waited for us. If you wanted to get away, you could have."

"Agent Thirteen tackled me before I had a chance."

"We both know that's not true."

"You're not going to get an answer, then," Natasha says, and somehow, she's managing to look down her nose at Maria.

Maria stares at her, long and hard, and she's not even aware she's doing it until Natasha bares her teeth at her, playful, but sudden, and Maria jerks back instinctively. Her movement meets Natasha's armlock and keeps her there.

"Why'd you kiss me?"

"You do this on purpose, Romanoff. I know you do. Is your life's aim to piss me off?"

"Hill..."

"You know why," Maria snaps, flushing. "Now let me go. I'd like to walk out of here with some dignity." Natasha raises an eyebrow, extraordinarily nonchalant under all that blood. Maria glares at her.

"God, we're messed up," Natasha breathes. Maria snorts indelicately, and she's about to give a cutting reply when the arm loosens around her head, Natasha surges upwards, and kisses her.

It's a surprise; forceful, crushing Maria's teeth against her lip, awkward as she tries to balance herself. Then Natasha's fingers slide around the back of Maria's neck, and Maria comes to a realisation.

Natasha's kissing her. Goddamn.

She kisses back.

She kisses back, like all the hot things crawling up her spine, Natasha's tongue in her mouth, sliding over her teeth-

They separate, gasping, and Maria's face is on fire, her body relaxing into Natasha's, pressing her hips into Natasha's thigh. They're tangled loosely over each other now, Maria's palm flat against the cold floor, and Natasha's eyes are swimming drunkenly beneath her.

"What-" Maria lets her eyes flutter closed- "the _hell_ , Natasha?"

"I thought you'd like that," Natasha breathes. Maria feels a pang go through her chest, because Natasha's right. It always _has_ been about Maria, this whole thing has revolved around her.

It's not like Natasha hasn't deserved every ounce of what Maria's given; she's deserved the yelling and the threatening and the glares from across rooms.

"And what would you like?" Maria asks slowly. There's no space for either of them to run this time, lying wrapped up together on the floor. Natasha's gaze flickers from Maria's eyes to her lips.

Her fingertips swirl lazily through Maria's hair, cold on the nape of her neck.

"I liked it, too," Natasha replies, haltingly, and there's that flash of uncertainty again, bounding from eye to eye. Maria doesn't want to ignore it.

"You sure?" she murmurs, bare millimetres from Natasha's lips again, because she can't pull away from that heat. There's something about Natasha that draws Maria in.

It's only taken her three years to realise it.

"Shut up and kiss me, Hill."

"Yes, ma'am," Maria says, a smile forming, and complies.

∆

Usually, Maria avoids eye contact with Natasha.

The morning after their encounter at the gym (and the subsequent happenings), Natasha won't take her eyes off Maria.

It gets distracting, to say the least.

Maria's taking a group of Level 4s for basic drill, in the limited Hub training grounds, and they're flubbing every order she gives them.

"You should punish them," someone says, warmly into her ear, and Maria spins around. Natasha saunters backwards in her gym kit, grinning. "Come on, you're Level 7 now, aren't you? They have to listen." Maria scoffs. "Make them run."

"I'll make _you_ run," Maria snaps, good-naturedly. "Scram, Romanoff."

"I'm here to observe," Natasha replies, and with a wink, she settles herself on a pile of jackets. Maria turns back to the agents.

"Rifles up," she orders wearily, and thirty rifles clatter into thirty shoulders, all at different times. "Fire on." They pull on their triggers, out-of-time clicking.

Maria can _feel_ Natasha eyeing up her ass.

"Rifle jams." They turn their rifles to the side. One guy wobbles and drops his with a rattle.

"Make him run," Natasha hisses.

"Quiet, Romanoff," Maria replies, flushing.

She glances over her shoulder. Natasha is giving her a _smirk_.

It's extraordinarily difficult to focus for the rest of the session.

∆

Natasha drags her into her cabin before the day is out, and Maria barely has time to register anything before she's pinned against the door and Natasha is kissing her neck like she hasn't seen her in a year.

"Are you horny this week, or something?" Maria gasps, and then Natasha edges her lips up behind Maria's ear and Maria's entire body gives a slackening shudder.

∆

They go on like this for a while.

A long while.

Fury seems to get wind of Maria's success on missions, in keeping Strike Team Delta out of trouble and dragging their sorry asses from the fray when the first case fails.

Maria gets promoted, Level 8, Commander Hill, an office in the Triskelion and on the Helicarrier, and a direct line to Director Fury himself.

"Plush," Natasha says, when Maria shows her the offices and the promotion on her tablet. Then she turns back to the basin and carries on washing blood out from under her fingernails.

"Natasha?" Maria asks, hopefully. "I'm stationed here for the foreseeable future."

"You deserve it," Natasha sounds, and she sounds strangled, she sounds insulted.

Maria's not a fool.

"Natasha," she says, warning. "Don't make me pin you and therapise you again." Natasha snorts.

"We both know I had the upper hand."

"Which was why you were flat on your back, of course. How could I miss that?"

"Sarcasm isn't a good look on you."

"You manage to pull it off."

"I, however," Natasha says haughtily, "could pull off a garbage bag."

"I know you're deflecting by making jokes about how hot you are."

"I'm not joking," Natasha says, and she smiles with all her teeth.

Neither of them speak for a second. Natasha goes back to furiously scrubbing at her hands.

 _Out, damn spot!_ Maria thinks.

"It won't change anything," Maria says softly.

"I'm not afraid of change."

"Sure." Maria tucks a strand of hair behind one ear and raises an eyebrow at Natasha. "The great Black Widow isn't afraid of anything." Natasha doesn't flinch, but it's a close thing. Maria's throat closes a little, sticky with sudden guilt. "Sorry."

Natasha's hands pause under the tap, steady as ever.

"I promise," Maria says, severely, and that ends that conversation. "Here."

She takes Natasha's hands, turning them over at the wrist, and switches the water to warm. Maria smooths her thumbs over Natasha's palms, and the blood slides out of the lines of her hands, washing away in the basin, leaving the basin a pure, crystalline white.

"You know I would never blame you," Maria says softly, when she catches sight of Natasha's empty eyes in the mirror. Natasha takes a breath.

"It-"

"I don't care who it was." She links her fingers into Natasha's, and the pink-stained water rolls over their skin.

Maria leans in to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Shout at me on Tumblr, paperbeliefs
> 
> Or send me a fic prompt in submissions
> 
> (I'll kudos all your works if you find the (paraphrased) quote from The Good Place that I put in)


End file.
